Portable Safety Strap for Holding Children in Wooden Restaurant Style Highchairs

ABSTRACT

An apparatus and method is proposed for providing restraint for a child in a wooden highchair widely used in eating establishments. The proposed apparatus and method requires no tools and does not damage the wooden highchair. It is portable, washable, and addresses many of the common issues found in widely used wooden highchairs in eating establishments.

BACKGROUND

There is an obvious need to restrain children in their highchairs for their own safety. In public eating establishments this has resulted in a wide variety of restraining harnesses and straps available on the highchairs provided by the eating establishments.

These permanently mounted restraint systems vary in their functionality and unfortunately tend to suffer wear and tear from active children, storage, and cleaning. Thus parents of small children often finding the public highchairs offered to them having at least two significant issues. The first is that some of the restraint systems have either broken or poorly performing restraints, and the second is that the restraints, which often have fairly porous surfaces, can collect contaminants (food or bacteria from previous use) and potentially pass that on to the next users.

There is a need then for a cleanable portable safety strap that parents can easily carry into eating establishments and use to securely restrain their children in the available highchairs.

SUMMARY

This need can be met by the development of a portable and adjustable safety strap for use on the widely used standard wooden highchairs available in most eating establishments. The proposed device is an extended strap of nylon and polypropylene or other durable materials, made up of two strap subassemblies; a shorter one attached at one end to a custom spring loaded carabiner and at the other end to a strap length adjuster; and a longer one attached at one end to a second custom spring loaded carabiner and at the other end to a pull ring; wherein the longer strap subassembly passes completely through the strap length adjuster to complete the one piece portable and adjustable safety strap.

The need can also be made by a method of using a portable and adjustable safety strap and placing the child in the eating establishment highchair; placing the elongated portable and adjustable safety strap across the child below the waist line; deploying each of the spring loader carabiners attached to each end of the one piece elongated portable and adjustable strap device outside and under the seat structure and attaching each custom carabiner across the back thickness of the seat of the highchair; and adjusting the length of the portable and adjustable strap with the pull ring to secure the child firmly in place.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of the complete strap.

FIG. 2 is a view of a possible carabiner body.

FIG. 3 is another view of a possible carabiner including a spring dip.

FIG. 4 is three views of the spring clips of the carabiners

FIG. 5 represents a very standard design of restaurant highchairs.

FIG. 6 illustrates a child in a restaurant highchair with the strap securing the child across the upper legs.

FIG. 7 is a rear view illustrating the attachment of the carabiner bodies to the back of the child seat.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, reference is made to accompanying drawings that illustrate embodiments of the present invention. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable a person of ordinary skill in the art to practice the invention without undue experimentation. It should be understood, however, that the embodiments and examples described herein are given by way of illustration only, and not by way of limitation. Various substitutions, modifications, additions, and rearrangements may be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention. Therefore, the description that follows is not to be taken in a limited sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.

FIG. 1, shown generally by the numeral 100 is an illustration of a proposed fully assembled portable safety strap. Illustrated are two straps 110, 120 with custom carabiners 130, 140 attached, one on each of the straps. At the other end of the portable safety strap is shown a pull ring 160, in the case illustrated a d-ring. In between the customer carabiner ends and the pull ring end is a strap length adjuster used for tightening the portable safety strap after placing it on the child. The assembly consists of a shorter strap subassembly and a longer strap subassembly. The shorter strap subassembly 110 has a sewn loop on one end for a custom carabiner 130 and a sewn loop on the other end for the strap length adjuster 150. The longer strap subassembly that includes strap 170 and strap 120 (as one piece) has a sewn loop on one end for the other custom carabiner 140 and a sewn loop for the pull ring 160. The longer strap subassembly passes completely through the strap length adjuster to complete the one-piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap of FIG. 1.

The strap length adjuster on the shorter subassembly and the pull ring on the longer subassembly are permanent and cannot be removed. The carabiners on each subassembly can be removed easily by threading the open end of the carabiner through the sewn loop. In order to complete the main assembly, one end of the long assembly must be threaded through the strap length adjuster on the short assembly before the loop on the long subassembly can be sewn for the carabiner.

In another embodiment (not shown) the simple strap length adjuster 150 can instead be a side release buckle in which the male part of the slide release buckle is attached to the short subassembly 110 and the female part of the side release buckle is the strap adjuster portion and still part of the long subassembly (170 and 120). Again the longer strap subassembly passes completely through the strap length adjuster portion. This embodiment works in the exact same way as the simpler strap length adjuster except it can be separated in the middle like an airplane seatbelt by separating the male and female parts of the side release buckle.

With the appropriate clearance in the custom carabiner design these carabiners can be easily attached to the back of the seat of the highchair without damaging the highchair and without the use of any tools. In FIG. 2, shown generally as 200, a custom carabiner body 210 is shown. Two holes 220 are available for the placement of the spring clip and an indented notch 230 is provided for fitting of the closed spring clip. In FIG. 3, shown generally as 300, is a straight side view showing the carabiner with the spring clip 310 inserted in the holes 320 and held in place in notch 330 by the spring tension. The “custom” aspect of the carabiner design is evident in the critical dimension of the opening across the carabiner, which must be large enough to allow the custom carabiner to be easily attached across the thickness of the highchair seat.

FIG. 4 shows three views 410, 420, 430 of the spring clip for clarity.

The proposed portable safety strap is designed for ideally working on the ubiquitous standard wooden highchair available in almost all restaurants. This standard chair is illustrated in FIG. 5, shown generally as 500. The chair is usually of all wood construction and has a flat seat portion 520 and is usually provided with a safety strap 510 on a front bar of the chair and a buckled seat belt deployed across the seat and around the seat 520. It should be noted that in all of these standard chairs the thickness of the seat portion 520 is less than 1 inch and the custom carabiner is designed to be used on all of those seat thicknesses.

In use the provided seat belt, which is sometimes broken and frequently soiled from frequent use is unbuckled and draped over the side through the side openings 530 to hang out of the way. The child is first placed in the seat and the portable safety strap is placed across the child at the waistline. Referring now to FIG. 6, shown generally as 600, is a child placed in the seat after the portable safety strap has been place across the child at the waist line and each of the straps with carabiners 610 attached are fed out through the side openings of the chair (530 in FIG. 5). The straps with carabiners are then passed under the seat and positioned behind the chair in order to clip onto the back of the seat structure of the highchair. FIG. 7, shown generally as 700 in a rear view of the chair shows the two carabiners 710, 720 fitted on the thickness of the back of the seat. The center buckle and adjuster is then used to tighten the strap appropriately by simple pulling on the pull ring until there is a snug fit holding the child firmly in the seat. The original seat belt is shown hanging below and is no longer needed. Once attached in this way and firmly tightened there is no way for the child to wiggle free of the portable safety strap and no way to reach or loosen the carabiners. This safety feature is important in that falls from these highchairs by children who have figured out how to loosen the belt buckle are the cause of many very serious head injuries annually.

The proposed portable strap addresses the issues of dirty and sometimes broken seat restraints in eating establishments and gives assurances to parents of a safer eating experience. The strap is easily portable and can be taken home to thoroughly clean after each visit, The portable safety strap can easily be rolled up into a compact form that fits easily in a woman's purse or man's pocket.

Although certain embodiments of the present invention and their advantages have been described herein in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. Moreover, the scope of the present invention is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments of the processes, machines, manufactures, means, methods and steps described herein. As a person of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate from this disclosure, other processes, machines, manufactures, means, methods, or steps, presently existing or later to be developed that perform substantially the same function or achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding embodiments described herein may be utilized according to the present invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to include within their scope such processes, machines, manufactures, means, methods or steps. 

1. A one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment comprising: a. two safety strap subassemblies comprising: i. a first shorter strap subassembly with a sewn loop on one end for attaching a first custom spring loaded carabiner and a sewn loop on the other end for attaching a strap length adjuster; and ii. a second longer strap subassembly with a sewn loop on one end for a second custom spring loaded carabiner and a sewn loop on the other end for a pull ring; b. wherein the second longer strap subassembly passes completely through the strap length adjuster, completing the one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap.
 2. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 1 wherein the strap length adjuster on the shorter strap subassembly is permanently attached to the shorter strap subassembly.
 3. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 1 wherein the pull ring on the longer strap subassembly is permanently attached to the longer strap subassembly.
 4. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 1 wherein the two custom carabiners on each of the strap subassemblies can be easily removed by threading the open end of the customer carabiner through the sewn loops.
 5. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 1 wherein the pull ring is a d-ring.
 6. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 1 where the safety strap is produced from a durable material.
 7. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 6 wherein the durable material is a nylon.
 8. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 6 wherein the durable material is a polypropylene.
 9. The one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap for use in providing a clean and safe restraint for a child in a highchair in an eating establishment of claim 1 wherein the strap length adjuster is a combination strap length adjuster and side release buckle in which the female side of the side release buckle comprises the strap length adjuster through which the second longer strap assembly passes and the first shorter strap subassembly is attached to a male side of the snap buckle.
 10. A method for restraining a child in an eating establishment highchair using a portable and adjustable safety strap having two straps with attached custom carabiners and a strap with a pull ring comprising: a. placing the child in the eating establishment highchair; b. placing the elongated portable and adjustable safety strap across the child below the waist line; c. deploying each of the spring loader carabiners attached to each end of the one piece elongated portable and adjustable strap device outside and under the seat structure and attaching each custom carabiner across the back thickness of the seat of the highchair; and d. adjusting the length of the portable and adjustable strap using the pull ring to secure the child firmly in place.
 11. The method for restraining a child in an eating establishment highchair using a portable and adjustable safety strap having two straps with attached custom carabiners and a strap with a pull ring of claim 10 wherein the portable and adjustable safety strap is made up of two safety strap subassemblies; the two safety strap subassemblies comprising: a. a first shorter strap subassembly with a sewn loop on one end for attaching a first custom spring loaded carabiner and a sewn loop on the other end for attaching a strap length adjuster; and b. a second longer strap subassembly with a sewn loop on one end for a second custom spring loaded carabiner and a sewn loop on the other end for a pull ring; c. wherein the second longer strap subassembly passes completely through the strap length adjuster, completing the one piece elongated portable and adjustable safety strap.
 12. The method for restraining a child in an eating establishment highchair using a portable and adjustable safety strap having two straps with attached custom carabiners and a strap with a pull ring of claim 11 wherein the strap length adjuster on the shorter strap subassembly is permanently attached to the shorter strap subassembly.
 13. The method for restraining a child in an eating establishment highchair using a portable and adjustable safety strap having two straps with attached custom carabiners and a strap with a pull ring of claim 11 wherein the pull ring on the longer strap subassembly is permanently attached to the longer strap subassembly.
 14. The method for restraining a child in an eating establishment highchair using a portable and adjustable safety strap having two straps with attached custom carabiners and a strap with a pull ring of claim 11 wherein the strap length adjuster is a combination strap length adjuster and side release buckle in which the female side of the side release buckle comprises the strap length adjuster through which the second longer strap assembly passes and the first shorter strap subassembly is attached to a male side of the snap buckle.
 15. The method for restraining a child in an eating establishment highchair using a portable and adjustable safety strap having two straps with attached custom carabiners and a strap with a pull ring of claim 14 wherein the portable and adjustable safety strap is removed after use by separating the male and female sides of the side release buckle. 